'Mr Wise': Giant Eagle Owl in Wotton-Under-Edge, Gloucestershire
It could have been a scene out of Harry Potter..
Picture the Cotswolds, Wotton-Under-Edge, narrow, old stone street, after dark..... {yes, we're in England....}
We caught this story LIVE from my two sisters, Maggi and Heather, still reverberating with wonder-filled delight of just how this breathtaking scene came down;
After sunset...
Walking through the darkened and deserted small town street of Wotton-Under-Edge [Cotswolds, Gloucestershire], with a friend. The three of them out for a movie, arrive to find the cinema full, every seat sold out.... (couldn't see 'Phantom Fred'!) They decide to go for a curry instead.
Suddenly they hear this sound, this deep unfamiliar sound....??
Their friend says maybe it's a dog. Nooo..... They cannot place the sound. They are puzzled....
Like an owl, but....
"You could tell it wasn’t a tawny owl.... The sound is much deeper and on two levels."
Now here, right here is where this great bird becomes like Abraham's Solomon/source energy Sara Books for my two sisters, whatever else he may have shown up AS for others;
Maggi, with all her being rising to meet this being, inviting the experience to unfold as it did;
Maggi returns his call, again, again, each time with all her faculties, all her senses, all her being, tuned to his call. And suddenly wow wonder wow (Heather describes), down this tiny Wotton-Under-Edge stone street is swooping, four foot wing span giant OWL (you have to picture this on a darkened narrow street, the wingspan ~ four feet~ filling the space, great bird looming...).
From here, Maggi's instincts play in again and "without a thought", she bends and makes her back into an aircraft carrier landing pad, and on her flattened back he lands "like two big heavy hands"..... And there she held her stance for him, in awe sublime. And Heather, perhaps four feet away, utterly gob-smacked at the scene.
Their friend is not sure at all that what is happening is safe or cool, but Maggi and Heather see and feel only a loving benevolence, and that is what they experience.
Those great 'hands' (as Maggi described his weight upon her) in fact are mighty talons, could lift a deer (we find out later), but not a mark on her (bright orange!) coat when they looked later.
He finally lifted off. Maggi and Heather were so ecstatic at this point that the details begin to blur, but 'bliss' and 'ecstatic' are the active verbs, still reverberating days later. They had yet to understand just Who [to whit to woo], just Who they had met...
Then Maggi sends "This is the sound I was copying!!!". And from here we get the background story; that these Eagle Owls haven't existed in the British Isles for 10,000 years, since there were land bridges to the Continent. Now they are back, perhaps as caged birds escaped, perhaps as birds who flew over a body of water near the Shetland Isles..... How and ever, as Mum would say, they are with us now and a very real conversation is taking place among British Isles bipeds, whether they are to be rounded up and sent packing, or welcomed as native from long before.
This Be He
And turns out this particular Wotton-Under-Edge Eagle Owl is Known as Mr Wise' the London Telegraph reported in the mating season Spring of 2015
"...When he first turned up we heard his call and straight away you could tell it wasn’t a tawny owl....The sound is much deeper and on two levels. He is obviously habituated to people. The lady who lives opposite us was walking along when he swooped on her, but we don’t believe he is actually going for anybody. We think he is a captive owl just trying to re-establish that connection with people. He’s a beautiful bird and should be left to live in the wild.”
For now, however, Mr Wise, carries his fate in his own talons. And the loneliest bachelor in the Cotswolds is refusing to give up hope."
Wow, What an amazing story! Corinna, you have captured the magic as usual. ...
Like a fairy tale:)